I’m exhausted writing this right now. Recounting what happened today makes me more exhausted.
Today was Sunday. Like every Sunday, we have mass at 7am, breakfast after. I set my alarm for 6, hoping to wake up and work out. Ha-ha, yeah right. I lay in bed till 630 waiting to hear the church bells go off telling me to get up. 635, no bells. Damn, I have to use my own will power. I’m showered and dressed in 7 minutes so I still have time for a cup of coffee. Mass went as usual, in Hindi, with lots of songs. This time though, they played more instruments, I want a bongo for Christmas mom, 6mts out, but just throwing that out there.
The game plan was meeting Anon for city fun after breakfast. So Mary Ellen and I changed ate a few hard boiled eggs, had out coffee. Cameras charged and ambitions ready, we head out to the city, in search of the Patna museum. We find it after walking some and riding in some 3 wheel rickshaws, these no longer bother me, as much. Museum doesn’t open till 1030, and its 10 now, so we walk across the street, catching the attention of all 300 people standing on the block and a half around us. At least I was wearing my sweet hat. Seriously, it looks awesome, and with the beard I’ve grown, I look great. So were across the street and I want to try some of this pastry that smells good, despite the countless flies flying above and landing on these delicacies. Against better judgment, I chose to try a doughty looking thing. Not bad. How about that deep fried dough? Yes! Sign me up. Oh it’s covered in sugar. Why didn’t you say so? Oh you probably did, but I dint understand you because I don’t speak Hindi. Right. That wasn’t bad. The grease burnt my mouth and hand, and I felt my heart slowing down, but it tasted good. I move a shop over and inquire what these orange balls were made of, which I guess translates into, hi I’m American I think I want to try that. If you say the word good, I’ll assume you mean it tastes good. So he says good and hands it to me. Without looking much at it I pop about half the thing in my mouth. I give some to Mary Ellen, and Anon refuses, laughing at me. So, avid sushi lovers out there. You know the orange little balls they put on some of the sushi, roe I believe it’s called; this looked like that, and tasted like that. For non avid sushi lovers, roe is fish eggs. I ate about a cup of warm fish eggs. With sugar. So I asked Mary Ellen if she wanted to finish the fish eggs she looks at me and says no, nearly gagging. I follow suit gag a little throw it in my mouth and swallow it without chewing, great idea Tim, now you have fish eggs stuck in your throat, great start to the day.
Museum opens, we buy a ticket, 10 Rs each. We get to security, quarter mile away and learn we need a foreigner ticket 250Rs. Cool. So we walk back get the ticket, finally in the museum we start with the stuffed animals. Taxidermied animals, rather. While I’m there, still in full sweat, these people start taking pictures of me. There are no pictures aloud in the museum, and people are breaking the law not to take pictures of Buddha statues or the giant stuffed bear, but to take a picture of me. I’m telling you, these people like me, I might not come home. Three people come up to me all giddy speaking English all three starting with, you’re not from India, are you? They meant well, one was a professor and he talked to me about research and something about computers, I understood every fourth word he said. Made for a very strange conversation. The other kid’s name was babaloo, I tried to hide my laughter, and I only thought that name was a cartoon bear. His girlfriend ended up pulling him away. The museum was rather boring, but the swords were pretty cool. Went outside and was greeted with more paparazzi
So, we wanted to do some research for our steam/solar project. Why not go old school and check out the library. I found an American library in town, got the address yesterday from my computer and we took 2 bicycle rickshaws there. Of course it would be a street with nothing on it. Are you going to rob us now, or are you going to kill us first? Obviously not at the right place we head back to the main road, no one has heard of this library. The only English speaking library is the British library and it close in 2001. So were on the main road trying to figure out which way is up and then we hear shouting. The ground is shaking. Guardrails are rattling. Traffic is stopped. There is a hugeee mob, quickly approaching us. They are shouting in bull horns, make a whole bunch of raucous. If you read the paper in the last 48 hours, you would understand some of my concern. We tell the driver to go. Go forward. Fast. Now. Somehow he understood and we stopped at a round-a-bout a little ways away. We got out. Reassessed the situation. And recognized sort of where we were. Anon was having an off day communicating with us. We also wanted to go to the granary. Supposedly, you can see all of Patna. Its Hindi name is Goldumah but of course, we didn’t think this was important to know. I looked at the map before we came out. I could figure this out if I knew where the Ganges River was. I asked a simple question, where is the Ganges, which must be code for everyone in ear shot come here and look at me confused. Because that’s what happened. I have two taxis lined up to take me to the Ganges, half the other people have never hear of the river the others are still dumbfounded the American spoke. Anon thinks we want to go to the river now. This sucks. Somehow, an Indian that spoke English well came over, helped us out. As were understanding which way is north, the riot turns the corner, oh 20 meters from us. Bull horn yelling, stomping their feet. We both relive ourselves of our last meal by placing it in our pants. We decide this is no longer safe, and start walking forward very swiftly, but not sprinting to draw more attention to us, and we walk down the next road and keep walking. Of course half the people we were talking to follow us and yell its ok. W.e the riot passes us so we think and we head back. Still shaken. Well it was only wave 1 of people but we were too far now to go back. We were surrounded by Indians we dint know, so we felt really safe. We head across the street to what we thought was a movie theater for a few days before when the English speaking gent caught up with me and asked me to meet his family. Ugh fine. The other two crossed the street, looking clearly angry at me. So I introduced myself to about four generations of this guy’s kin. They assemble quickly. I said hi, talked to them for a few minutes. They took some pictures and I caught back up with my group.
Were at the movie theater, it has a Baskin Robbins. YESSSSS. And a guard comes up, same guard from last time, but this time he opens the door. Cool. We go in… it’s a hotel?!?! Whatttt. Its air conditions so we sit down and the concierge ends up coming down to us. We ask him all these questions and he understands. Mary Ellen starts laughing. We figure out where we are, where the Ganges is, how to acquire a map, and that the grainary is golduhma or however it’s spelled. OH and there is an American library, not called American corner, like it says online, but American counter. Come on!!! Thanks Google.
We head across this giant field that feels like were walking on a thin layer above hell. We make it to the other side, I buy the memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and Mary Ellen buys a map. We find a real movie theater and vow to come back. We head back and I’m walking fast ready for a shower and a nap. It’s barely 2pm. And Anon, with his leg is going slow. So I caught myself and slowed down. Then I got to thinking. This is a huge blessing in disguise. So yes, we are lost more often than we would like, but its forcing us to navigate this third world nation with very little supplied knowledge. His polio is forcing us to go slow and as a result we see so much more, smell so much more, and hear so much more. Mary Ellen and I begin laughing again. In class we were told when stuff is going really wrong, and you are frustrated. Start laughing because you certainly will laugh about it after the fact. This whole day was rather hilarious.
I’m glad to be alive. We came back and had lunch. The rice was awesome. I ate so much of it; I had a rice food coma.
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